Julia Hassall said, “I think the point I was just going to raise is that we’ll make sure that the high level notes, I think it’s a very valuable suggestion looking at grouping them for each meeting to get a sense of the themes, are made public when we go to Cabinet with our report. So those will inform in part along with other things, the recommendations that are made to Cabinet.”
A member of the audience described the consultation document as “not worth the paper it’s written on” and “utterly deceiving”. Phil Ward replied with “point taken” and asked for any other questions?
A different member of the audience asked whether they would look at the banding system and see whether it was adequate? Phil Ward replied, “No, there is an intention for the work around the children, not n relation to costing but it was in relation to in the event of Cabinet agreeing to close the school and it finally does so, then we had captured the up to date information that we retain on the children so that we could begin, on an individual family basis, because we’re not talking about groups of children looking for one place or another, I have to speak up on an individual basis just to ensure that discussions with parents and discussions around the receiving schools and so forth we just had to give the fullest information. That was the purpose of that.”
David Armstrong said, “Just on the banding system, the banding system where we have five bands because of the special schools budget. Clearly, it’s new so it’s only been in place for a short while and I mentioned the Schools Forum before. We had an issue before to review that, clearly we’ve got to make it run for this financial year.” He referred to the Schools Forum and how questions about the banding feed into the Schools Forum.
Someone in the audience said that even if the school was full, that this didn’t matter as what mattered was whether they were adequately funded because without that they couldn’t stay open. Phil Ward replied to that and Councillor Dave Mitchell referred to a petition to Council five years ago about Lyndale School and a presentation. He referred to bullet points from the agreed notice of motion and other issues presented at that time. He asked if that would be presented to Cabinet?
David Armstrong replied, “The Cabinet report will have to include the history of all the previous reports that have gone over the last couple of…”
Councillor Dave Mitchell asked, “Will that include the decisions made by Council which were fully supported by all parties?” David Armstrong answered, “No, it would just include references to previous reports.” Councillor Dave Mitchell replied, “I think that’s a very important issue, it should be actually highlighted. It was a notice of motion to Council and it was fully supported by the local authority at that time.” Julia Hassall said, “We did make very clear reference to that to my recollection at the call in.” Phil Ward thanked Councillor Dave Mitchell for his point.
Someone from the audience said they wanted to raise a point about outdoor space at the three schools (Lyndale, Elleray Park and Stanley). She said she thought it was where it’s going to fall down on the SEN [Improvement] Test. Lyndale School was described as “it’s an absolutely fabulous site, it’s got established gardens, it’s got established trees, we take children out into the garden, we take lessons in the garden, we take children at a lunchtime”. She said, “the idea of squashing people in is not conducive to a good education”. Phil Ward replied, “Thank you for that point.”
The next question was about Stanley School. David Armstrong replied, “The school’s brand new and what we learnt when the Lyndale School was built was looking at primary schools. We built them absolutely tight on the existing campus. We found that the schools became more popular and also you’re building something for fifty or sixty years. We’re building something for fifty or sixty years, so we’re building to a generous standard and the new style that was built to a generous standard.
The school, the school that we’re building had a capacity of ninety pupils. The new building is capable of taking a hundred and ten and the reason for that is that we’ll be building to the maximum standards in place, we’re building some spare capacity because we’re investing several million pounds for the next couple of years.”
The next question was if there were any children with profound and multiple learning disabilities at Stanley School? David Armstrong answered, “The school was built to take the full range of pmld [profound and multiple learning disabilities]. The same questioner asked, “Are there any there at the moment?” followed by asking that if you put four or five from Lyndale into the school surely it would fail the SEN [Improvement] test as Lyndale provided one to one care in a school that catered for their complex needs? Phil Ward replied, but people started talking over each other again.
Julia Hassall said that she’d talked about the children with profound and multiple learning disabilities not growing in size, but that there had been an increase in children with complex learning difficulties, the questioner referred to the numbers over the last five years. Julia Hassall replied, “In terms of how we meet the SEN Improvement Test we are confident that the staff at the Stanley School…” and then was then interrupted.
David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) said, “OK, thank you. Apologies to those of you who’ve heard this five times before. This is the last time for you. I wanted to just set out the bones of how the school is funded and set out some information requested by staff and I’m responsible for the two budgets and I’ll come back to those and I’m also responsible for school assets and school buildings and I have been responsible for those back in fact to the days when it was relocated from Clatterbridge.
I look after two budgets, a £80 million budget for the Children and Young Peoples Department budget which pays for things like fostering, adoption and a whole host of the other none related schools services. We also have a £240 million budget which is the schools budget. It comes with the title of Dedicated Schools Grant, it comes from government summarised as DSG, it comes into the Council it has to be passed onto schools.
So as Julia [Hassall] said, it’s not about the Council somehow undertaking some of that money and treating it as a saving. It’s about the long term financial security of the school. The DSG when it comes in covers four areas, early years, primary, secondary and special.
(drowned out by someone’s mobile phone)
It goes through a formula, a local formula and that is distributed into schools.”
He explained how the Schools Forum decided on the formula and how it the Schools Forum comprised of volunteers representing the various types of schools. He said that when he was a head in the 1980s, he only managed two budgets in the school. One was books and paper and the second was whatever the school made selling photos. In 1990 there was a change and the big budgets that had been managed by councils were redistributed to schools.
Mr Armstrong said that to begin with each council had its own formula and that every council used different things to redistribute the schools budget. With special schools he said “it has always been slightly different”. He said that nationally that there was a movement at least in part to fund special schools by pupil and not just by place. David Armstrong said that the numbers at Lyndale School had fallen, making it difficult to run the school. In the last few years he said Andrew [Roberts] working with the school governors, the Schools Forum and the other special schools had funded Lyndale School for a number of empty places.
Looking forward, he said that Wirral Council would have to seek authorisation on whether they could do that from a national body called the Education Funding Agency. In his view the future was less certain because the EFA had said that they’d like Wirral Council to come to a point where they were funding per a pupil and not per a place. He said it was a question about the long term financial stability of the school and it wasn’t about making a quick saving by closing the school.
David Armstrong said that they’d been through this process with other primary schools and a secondary school and that the savings had been recycled into the formula. He was happy to take questions.
Phil Ward (chairing the meeting) thanked Mr. Armstrong and said that before they started the opportunity to ask questions and raise issues, he referred to an attendance sheet and asked people who hadn’t signed it to do so. He said, “A lot of people have lots of things to say with conviction and passion and we would ask they allow everybody a chance to speak and put forward to the meeting to hear what’s been said. So on that basis, are there any questions?” After twenty-five minutes (of a two hour consultation meeting) the people present finally got a chance to ask questions.
The first questioner introduced herself and asked if they could get a copy of the notes being taken? Interrupting the questioner before she’d had a chance to finish and talking over her, Phil Ward barked at the questioner in the tone of voice you’d usually reserve for someone who’d stood on your foot, “I’ve answered that one a few times! We’re not taking minutes of the meeting but high level notes and these notes will be used to capture some of the key points raised at the meetings and these notes will also be reported to elected members [councillors] of the Cabinet. They’re not for circulation. Is that clear?”
The same questioner replied with, “but this is a public consultation!”, Phil Ward again interrupted her and said, “It is a public”, she continued, “it should be for everyone”. Phil Ward replied, “I’ve answered that already but the high level notes, we will capture the views, as we have done for the last five meetings and those views, and those views will be reported to members of the Cabinet.”
Councillor Phil Gilchrist asked whether the notes would set out so that they could get a feel of what’s been raised at the consultation meetings? Phil Ward replied, “We can do it in a different way, we can collate all of the notes together and just do a summary report of the key points or alternatively we could choose to do a summary report on each of the individual meetings laying out if you like the issues raised and I think that’s what you’re alluding to in terms of about each meeting the way it seemed to be borne out with these issues, there are those with these issues so we’ll look at that.”
Another question was asked about the notes to which Phil Ward replied, “They’re notes recording the high level points raised at the meetings and importantly we will be reporting them to Cabinet.”
A different questioner stated that he thought the meetings should be fully minuted. He described himself as a support worker that worked full time over three fourteen hour shifts. He referred to previous meetings that people hadn’t turned up to. A meeting at Lyndale School had been arranged and only seven councillors had turned up to it.
He continued and said that despite working full-time, he had found the time to come to the meeting. Continuing, he said he had asked people if they were against the decision to consult on closing Lyndale School and said that a hundred percent of those he had contacted were against closure of Lyndale School. He referred to flaws in the consultation and that there had been “100% disapproval” on “ploughing ahead” when Wirral Council was there to serve the people of Wirral.
Phil Ward replied with, “Is that something which you’d like to submit to us?”. He replied, “Oh, yes” and Phil Ward said, “Just to remind you the consultation finishes on the 25th June.”
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1)
The last of the meetings concerning the consultation on closing Lyndale School was held in the hall at Acre Lane Professional Excellence Centre. There to answer questions people had were David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive), Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services), Andrew Roberts and Phil Ward (who was chairing the meeting). There was also a sign language interpreter called Sue March, however Phil Ward sent the sign language interpreter away as there was no one present (from the twenty-five or so others present at the start of the meeting) that indicated they needed sign language interpretation.
Labour’s Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services Councillor Tony Smith arrived about five minutes late to the meeting. He sat with the three officers, but didn’t take a part in answering the questions people had.
Julia Hassall said she was “pleased to see so many people” and that there had been some people who had been to all six meetings. She was giving the same introduction at each one, which was drawn from the consultation document (copies of which were available for people at the meeting). She described Lyndale School as a special school in Eastham for children with complex learning disabilities whose viability was compromised by a falling roll and a small number of children.
It was at this point that Councillor Tony Smith arrived.
She repeated a point she had made at a previous meeting, that the consultation on closure was nothing to do with standards of education at the school as the last OFSTED inspection in November 2012 had concluded that the school was good with many outstanding aspects. However in her view Wirral Council needed to get future provision right and in her view two other schools (Elleray Park and Stanley) were able to provide good quality education and care.
Ms Hassall said that the closure proposal was not linked to Wirral Council’s need to save money as any money saved would be used elsewhere, however they were under a duty to make sure there were sufficient school places. She referred to the Children and Young Peoples Plan and the Children and Families Act 2014 c.6. She said that the new legislation would improve the partnership between education and health as the care plan would detail how both education and health would meet the children’s needs in a joined up way.
She referred to the report to the Cabinet meeting of the 16th January when they had agreed to start the consultation and the other options that were being consulted on (she went through the options some of which other than closure were becoming a 2-19 school, federating with another school, co locating with another school, becoming a free school or academy). The full list of options are detailed in an appendix to the Cabinet report. Julia Hassall said that during the consultation all options and any new ones were being considered.
Continuing she told those present that the Cabinet decision of the 16th January had been called in and looked at again by the Coordinating Committee on the 5th February and 27th February. She said that the Coordinating Committee had recommended that the consultation start, which had begun on the 2nd April.
Since the consultation had begun, there had been three meeting in April, two already in June with this meeting being the last of the six. Issues that had been brought up previously were referred to. She said that they had to apply the SEN Improvement Test as any alternative had to be as good as or better than the current provision. Julia Hassall said that they had agreed to engage an independent consultant Lynn Wright (Ed – I am unsure of the exact spelling of this person’s name however this was what it sounded like Julia Hassall said) to offer advice how how they looked at the eight options, any new options and to assess how they applied the SEN Improvement Test. She said that Lynn Wright was not known to the officers prior to this and would produce a separate report with an independent view that would be included when Cabinet decided whether to proceed for a formal proposal.
If Cabinet decided to proceed to the next stage, then there would be a four week statutory representations period and if Cabinet finally approved to close the school it would close at the end of the summer term in 2015 and children at Lyndale would be transferred in September 2015. She wanted to stress that no decision had been made and they would take everybody’s views into account. Ms Hassall referred to someone called Janice who was taking notes on the front row. She continued by saying that small schools could go into financial deficit whereas larger schools had more flexibility and could spend a higher proportion on teaching and meeting children’s needs.
Every January they took a census of pupil numbers. There were 401 children attending nursery with complex learning difficulties and within this 401, sixty-four had profound and multiple learning difficulties. However the number of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties had been similar over the past four years and wasn’t a growing trend. She referred to the number of places at Elleray Park and how through discussions with the school and building work they planned to increase the places there to 110. Stanley School had moved from its former site to a purpose built school and in her view they could add a further five to ten more children there without an extension but could extend it if needed to give sufficient places. She referred to a meeting between the Chief Executive (Graham Burgess) and three parent governors and how there would be a further meeting on Friday (20th June). She then handed over to David Armstrong.
What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”
What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”
Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation
Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services) and David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) answer questions from councillors on the Lyndale School closure consultation decision
JULIA HASSALL ..are all included within the admissions book.
(heckling) I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.
JULIA HASSALL OK, if there are individual parents who are saying this evening they’ve not received that, then that’s something I will continue to look into.
(heckling)
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER So, quite right. My second question is errm, if you look at the, well the information tonight page 141, 140 to 141 2.5 if you skip the bullet points and go straight to the paragraph at the top of page 141, I won’t read the whole paragraph out but it just says that the changes proposed over a two year period, April 2014 to 16 and will be kept under review with regular reports to the Schools Forum. You’re looking to consult on closure for Lyndale, oh sorry.
JULIA HASSALL Sorry Chair, is this the second report?
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER It’s the err…
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES The first.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER It’s the 21st of March?
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES Quite right, that is under the funding report.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER Oh no, no, no. Oh right. Maybe I should ask that? It’s not about funding.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES It is under the funding report. I’m afraid, sorry.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER OK, I’ll hold back on that. I’ll hold back on that question but I won’t forget.
Right, my next two questions are for David. You just said that you were involved when Lyndale sort of moved from Clatterbridge. How big’s the area, the size around Lyndale School’s on at the moment?
DAVID ARMSTRONG I can honestly say Councillor Fraser that I don’t know the answer because I’ve deliberately because I don’t want it to confuse the debate and become a distraction, we have done no action whatsoever looking at the Lyndale site.
I said to Pat this evening after the parents spoke at the last meeting, I would very much like to have visited the school and have a look around, so I did talk to Pat but also to remind myself about the school as I was a mainstream teacher.
I deliberately haven’t done that because if I go to the school particularly with my current monitoring responsibilities everyone will think I’ve come to look at the building or look at the site or look at the land. I know the area that the site occupies but genuinely myself and no one else in my team that work with me would have come to look at the site. So I couldn’t actually quote that figure tonight.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER Well if you’ve got, this leads me on to another point, without being difficult surely the Council has maps that you could look at? And also to see the size of the land? And also if the numbers at Lyndale are going down why are you extending Elleray Park?
(applause)
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER When my children went to school and I could choose the school, if there weren’t enough places there tough, you had to go to another school. Obviously it’s slightly different with special needs but I don’t understand why you’re not sending, suggesting that children go to Lyndale (making the most of the capacity)? Also I’d be interested if you looked at the map, how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?
(applause)
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES OK, I’ll allow the officers to reply to that and then is that your questions finished?
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER Sorry no, I’ve got one more.
DAVID ARMSTRONG Thank you Chair, yeah but clearly I could look at maps Councillor Fraser. As far as I’m concerned it would be totally irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about whether we should consult on whether to close the school.
I tried to explain, that I am known as the asset person in the Council and currently I have all the baggage and tags that go with that. There has been no work done on looking to dispose of the site.
I think it is useful, very useful that you raised that point because I would just like to take you briefly through the process because if I set that out now then I think it should clear it away for future debate.
The work to Elleray Park stems from a Cabinet report from 2009, where we were asked to go away and bring forward plans to build two new schools, one at Stanley and one at Elleray Park linked to primary school sites.
Clearly we’ve just completed the Stanley one, located it next to Pensby and that was done through funding claiming for that purpose. Because of the national circumstances the funding was withdrawn in July 2010. There’s no prospect realistically of funding on that scale now.
We have £21.5 million worth of funding capital in 2010/11. Next year we’ll have £4.1 million so we know we’re facing a different landscape. So what we want to do is go back and invest in the schools that we know now that we’ll not be rebuilding and that’s where that deal comes from, it has its origins there.
In terms of bidding for the money, we’ve had that, we’ve been looking for that for a while. Yes when we bid internally for the money against our colleagues we did also make a reference to the fact that should a decision be taken to close Lyndale clearly we will need places at other schools but the Elleray Park building work is not dependent on any decision you make about Lyndale. The scheme at Elleray Park will be done for suitability reasons and flexibility reasons whatever the decision about Lyndale. So it is not dependant in any shape or form on a proposition about Lyndale.
It actually begins to sort out things again that I did in the mid 1990s, as a short-term measure. I converted the former caretaker’s house to teaching accommodation. I never intended that it would last the length of time that it did. The scheme deals with that issue.
It moves the kitchen from the back of the school to the front which makes sense in terms of deliveries, so it does deal with issues with the school that exist. In all schools we try and respond to parental choice. We provide extra accommodation where we can when people are clearly wanting to go to that school. That’s national policy and it’s something we’ve tried to do.
In terms of the site, the idea that we can somehow just sell the site and pocket the money is actually a bit, well it’s very far fetched. If the decision was taken to close Lyndale there’d be a stepped process. For me, if a decision was taken to close the school, that doesn’t automatically mean that it would mean there would be no education on the site.
The school could convert to a free school, it could convert to an academy. It could be a shared, split site school with another school and the site would carry on being used much as it is now.
If that didn’t happen, I’d want to look to see what other purposes we could put to it for children because it’s had investment as I say it had an investment in 1999 a substantial one. It’s one of only four schools we’ve got with pools and you’d want to explore other possibilities.
It has a youth hub and a youth club on the corner of the site so there’d be lots of other possibilities. If it came to the fact there was no school and no other use for it, we have to then apply to the Secretary of State. We have to get his permission to dispose of the site.
We have to do it under two pieces of legislation, one is section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act which covers the playing fields and the playing field is not just a pitch it’s any outside space and we have to do it under section 1 of the Academies Act for the rest of the site and the Secretary of State’s words are that “a presumption is against you” on this issue. So even if we went through all those processes and the Secretary of State did give permission to dispose of the site it could then be disposed of but that condition would be based on us having specific schemes where the funding would have to be reinvested in other schools.
So I think it’s useful to set all that out to show, it is a process we’ve gone through. We’ve relocated schools to school sites when schools have closed. We have disposed of sites but the money goes reinvested back into schools.
So there’s absolutely no motive on me and anybody else to address this as a capital or an asset issue. That comes at the end and I hope by going through that and it’s a legal process, it’s a national process that shows that really the debate needs to be had about the needs of the children not about the site.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES Go on, you’ve got one more question Leah.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER No, you said I could have four, no, but we’ve got plenty of time! But errm right,
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES No sorry, I’ll let you put the question if you like.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER Thank you Chair. My next question is, the email that Rochelle Smith mentioned, which I’m sure you were waiting for me to ask or somebody to ask that. From Paul Ashton “no plans for closure” sent in April 2012. What happened between April 2012 to a couple of months ago last year? That seems quite a change of policy, can you explain that?
DAVID ARMSTRONG I think we’d like to. The letter came in when I was covering the Director of Childrens Services post, which we… Julia agreed upon to. So I was wearing two hats when that letter came in. I was covering the Director’s post but I was also still working with Andrew doing the finances. The letter was read in that context.
I asked Paul Ashcroft to reply to the letter because he was the specialist special, he was the senior inspector for special education, but I also had a discussion with him because if I sit there wearing the hat doing the thing with Andrew the very last thing we would want is for any member of our team, to be suggesting that children shouldn’t go to the school. It’s the very last thing we would want, it would make an already difficult situation even worse.
He went away, he replied to the letter, he replied to the parent and I also asked him to research whether he could come across any evidence of where our staff were directing children away from the school and that’s the most current and it’s interesting, it’s been really good to listen to what’s been said tonight because the references to me appear to have been mainly, if not exclusively to staff who work for another organisation and I think that’s an issue that Julia will research in her own way.
The situation is as I described at the very beginning, the national framework has now embedded itself in. Andrew and I are looking to the future landscape, we can see more hurdles that we’ll have to go through, other agencies will have to be involved in saying yes or no to the current arrangement we have with funding empty places, we see a clear direction now in special which is to move towards paying for the pupil rather than the place so it’s because, unbeknownst to us at the beginning of this, it’s that national context and also the numbers haven’t added, the numbers have stayed broadly stable and that clearly makes the problem difficult.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES OK, next I’m going to deal with Paul, Pat and Adam in that order.
COUNCILLOR PAUL DOUGHTY I am at an advantage actually over some of the parents and members of the audience because I know you as individuals and I know as individuals how passionate you are about children and your responsibilities towards them and our parents and members of the audience here don’t know that and they don’t have the advantage that myself and some of the other councillors have.
I think one of the problems we’ve got is the language that’s been used in some of the communication, perhaps in the newspapers and their responsibility for that. Also perhaps the, we referred to you that know some of the perhaps careless language of NHS staff perhaps and so we have a challenge really as a local authority as to how we can reverse that negative view that parents have so the question is given some of the comments that have been made to us where parents have a lack of confidence in the process and the consultation is there anything else that you feel that as officers we can do to try and restore confidence in the consultation process that haven’t already been presented tonight?
JULIA HASSALL OK Chair, if I start the answer to that. One of the things that we’re deeply committed to doing should the decision be to proceed with the consultation is to talk with parents and each child, talk with the school and really make sure we’ve got as up to date assessment of the needs of each individual child at Lyndale School.
So that as we go forward, we are very genuinely looking at options in the knowledge of each individual child so that when we apply what’s called the SEN Improvement Test, we’re doing it based on our understanding of what each individual child needs and looking at how their needs can and if they can be met in a different setting.
So it’s making sure amidst what you say Councillor, a lot of the language that’s been used that we pull it back to first principle and say this is about getting it right for some exceptionally vulnerable children and how to care deeply about their children and we’ll need to be absolutely reassured whether the child is going to school they have staff in that school who can absolutely respond to their children’s needs in a very caring appropriate way and that is the very heart of what we must do as we take this forward.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES OK, Pat and then Adam and then Leah and that… and I do want to spread it round the committee, all ok?
COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN I’ll try and keep my questions to the question of debating whether we should have a call in on, oh a consultation. One of the parent witnesses Julia has said earlier that she had or that parents had forwarded questions to you and not received replies. My question to you is, have you been waiting to reply to these queries on the fact that the parents have raised objections to the proposed current consultation? I’ve got one more question.
JULIA HASSALL Thank you Councillor, I’m glad you asked me that question. I met with staff at the school and with parents on the 19th of December. It was the soonest date we could arrange after I met with the governing body at Lyndale School and I brought with me a colleague who took very detailed notes at the meeting.
Quite soon after Christmas, there were very detailed questions and did need to canvass a number of views to get accurate responses and Mrs Dawn Hughes who was a parent who spoke at the Cabinet meeting, I think Dawn is here this evening, on the 16th January very helpfully wrote to me saying this is a summary of the questions we asked and here are some additional questions and she did that under the freedom of information process and what I did I was a little delayed, but I did respond to Mrs Hughes within the freedom of information timescale which is about three weeks or so ago.
I’m probably mistaken because I understood that those questions and responses would be circulated to other parents. If that’s not happened I will do that tomorrow.
(heckling) The answers given they weren’t answers.
COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN One other question Chair.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES OK.
COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN Another witness referred to the fact that the closure of Lyndale School has been brought to their attention by members of staff from another organisation. Have you had any contact yourself with the NHS about Lyndale School and the staff that were mentioned?
JULIA HASSALL Councillor Glasman, I’ve been slightly chary about going very broad on consultation at this point, but I I I have indirectly made contact with Doctor Steiger but I will want to if the consultation proceeds, certainly meet with a group of community pediatricians to elicit their views and meet with other health professionals who are involved and I know that there are some who are actually directly working within the Lyndale School and I want to very much take soundings from them and from any other professional who’s directly involved.
COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN You want to emphasise to them that (inaudible)
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES OK, Adam.
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.
What did officers say at the Lyndale School call in? “we had a problem the rules mattered more than the children”
What did officers say at the Lyndale School call in? “we had a problem the rules mattered more than the children”
Councillor Moira McLaughlin asks a question about staffing at Lyndale School (Coordinating Committee, Wirral Council, 27th February 2014)
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.
Julia Hassall (Director of Children Services), Andrew Roberts (Head of Branch and Planning Resources) and David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) answer questions from councillors on the Lyndale School closure consultation decision
CLLR STEVE FOULKES
Back to order. Settle down, I have a rather unfortunate announcement to make. One of our elected Members Councillor Denise Realey has become unwell. I think she’s found the evening stressful as everybody has to be frankly honest and has taken unwell so for the minutes can we have it recorded that Councillor Realey has left the meeting and will take no further part in the decision-making.
OK, with that said, we now move onto the next set of witnesses, these are evidence from the people obviously officers of the Authority. Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services), David Armstrong who is Assistant Chief Executive and Head of Universal Infrastructure Services and Andrew Roberts who is Head of Branch and Planning Resources.
They have up to five minutes to speak to us, for brevity they are not taking that option and will probably be spending more time answering questions from elected Members but Julia, you want to give us the background and the thought processes that ended up in the presentation of the papers to Cabinet and the consequent decision. Thank you.
JULIA HASSALL
OK, thank you Chair and members of the audience. I just wanted to start by saying from a senior officer perspective how much I appreciated hearing what the parents and members of staff said this evening.
I think following that what the three of us will say will sound a bit bureaucratic, a bit clinical and it’s by virtue of the proposals that we need to put forward. I would like to state that all three of us come from a position of valuing the children that we work with and regarding outcomes for children as an absolute priority.
The report that was presented to Cabinet on the 16th January, was seeking approval to consult on the closure of the Lyndale School. The report set out the background, saying that local authorities have a statutory duty to make sure there are sufficient places in their area, there’s fair access to educational opportunity to promote every child’s potential.
The reasons why in the report we’re considering closure of the school is because of the viability of the school is compromised because of its small size and falling roll which both contribute to a difficult financial position and I think as you said Chair earlier, it’s not in any way because of the standard of care and education in the school which is good and in many aspects outstanding.
In terms of the falling roll over the last seven years, the Lyndale School’s average occupancy has been 59% and there are currently twenty-three children at the school out of a total possible forty places. I know the second report that you’re considering call in really focuses on the financial position which is very briefly the size of the school and the numbers of pupils contribute to a difficult financial position with a likely deficit of £72,000 corrective action for 14/15 with the potential for this to increase to be in excess of £232,000 based on the numbers of children currently on the school roll. Part of that is because of changes to the national formula, which Councillor Smith referred to in terms of funding individual places occupied and a reduction from forty funded places to twenty-three because there are twenty-three children with places and also applying the new banded top up system.
Should a decision be taken to close and this would be in the future. I need to keep emphasising that the report that went to Cabinet on the 16th January was seeking permission to consult on potential closure and the report on the 16th January said that at this stage, the two most, the most viable option if or should the school close, was to expand Elleray Park School and Stanley schools so that the children currently at Lyndale School and future children would go to both of those schools.
It certainly would simply not be a case of just adding children into the existing schools. It would require very, very careful planning, consultation and change the very nature of each school by virtue of additional children joining that school, both school’s community.
It’s really important to say that in the most recent OFSTED report Elleray Park School was judged to be outstanding across the board and Stanley School was judged to be a good school with outstanding leadership and management.
One thing I did want to say and in response to possibly some of the points made earlier, it’s really important to state at this stage that the closure of the school appears the most viable option after having considered a number of options which are the eight options that parents referred to. However I have said and I’m very mindful of the fact that the eight options have been considered by local authority officers and I would expect to proceed to consultation that each of those options would be rigorously considered again and there will be other options that come forward that we have not thought of.
So in very general there will be a proper options appraisal looking at each and every option that comes forward. Should Cabinet, the report that went on the 16th actually talked about the next steps. So, should Cabinet agree to consult on whether we should close the school, there would then follow a twelve week consultation process that will involve full consultation meetings, a consultation meeting with the parents, teachers, interested people connected with Lyndale School, Stanley School and Elleray Park School. There would be drop in sessions. We’d do whatever we needed to do to get to the best possible option to move forward.
I think in summary, I would want to conclude just by describing the report that went on the 16th January that by saying considering the closure of the school is difficult and distressing as you’ve heard this evening particularly when children have such special needs and other abilities. It’s really important that their needs are placed at the centre of our concern and that what’s called the special educational needs improvement test is applied with absolute rigour and that’s a test to make sure that whatever we come up with and whatever Cabinet may agree in the future, is as good as or better than the current provision for the children concerned and it was on that basis, taking all those points into account that I recommended to Cabinet on the 16th January that they should agree to consult on closure and that I would proceeded to compile the consultation document. I’m very happy to answer any questions that Members may have or any comments.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Any of the other officers wish to make a statement about the issue? No?
DAVID ARMSTRONG
No.
ANDREW ROBERTS
No.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
No, ok. So, it’s clearly open to. Sorry I’ll use my mike I do apologise. It’s obviously open to questions from Members, I’ve got Moira, Leah and Alan and then I’ll take another three.
COUNCILLOR MOIRA MCLAUGHLIN
If it’s alright with you Chair, I’ll combine two of my questions in one go and make it a bit simpler. The first one is, is there capacity for forty children and there’s twenty-three there currently? Has that reduction so far, I mean I don’t quite know how to put this, Steve did allude to it before, if there’s fewer children there I imagine the establishment was reduced to accommodate the children or has the establishment, the staffing establishment I’m talking about not changed even though the numbers have reduced?
ANDREW ROBERTS
What err the staffing establishment reduced I think it was two years ago the funded places reduced from forty-five to forty.
COUNCILLOR MOIRA MCLAUGHLIN
Right, and over a period of time the numbers have reduced further what would happen then as there’s attrition, what would happen? How would that be dealt with?
ANDREW ROBERTS
That’s part of our ongoing discussion with the school and about how the budget issues have been, are dealt with.
COUNCILLOR MOIRA MCLAUGHLIN
OK, thank you very much. That’s the first one. The second one is I mean a couple of questions I asked about from Zoe and Rochelle were about confidence in the process at this point. I think, certainly I was dismayed to see the phrase in this report which was consultation on closure and it seemed to me in the first instance that it kind of preempts the outcome and I have been reassured by the Cabinet Member so far, well I’ve heard what the Cabinet Member said, I’m looking for more reassurance that this is a genuine open consultation and that options that are there, eight of them will be considered and the possibility is still there that other options that haven’t been considered to this point may emerge during the process. There’s those and I mean if you can reassure me of or do your best to reassure me that what the second part is how are you going to reassure parents now because they’ve lost a bit of confidence, well lost a lot of confidence in the process?
JULIA HASSALL
OK, by way of reassurance that we will have a very full and open and transparent consultation. I’ll just take a step back, take a step back. The advice I sought prior to embarking on this process was the local authority in these circumstances when we were considering the viability of the school would put forward a proposal to consult on closure. That is what is done, that is how it’s approached.
The intention is to consider every single option, that’s a that’s in the appendix and the eight options that are included there. When I met with the parents prior to Christmas, in a pre consultation meeting I was explaining how we reached a conclusion with a purely internal local authority looking at a number of options which was about us reaching first base to present a report to Cabinet saying that we needed to consult.
The consultation will take account of each and every one of those options, which we will undertake to revisit again and we will genuinely consider every single option that appears that we may not have considered so far.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, I did say I’ve got Leah and Alan. I think those two are … ok, sorry.
DAVID ARMSTRONG
Chair, just to add to that. Just for the benefit of the audience, I’m David Armstrong and Andrew Roberts is sitting to my left.
Just for the benefit of Members, I currently have some duties outside of the department particularly to do with assets and supporting the Chief Exec. I’m here as the Head of Service for the Children’s Department, clearly I have a responsibility about the school budgets and assets and other issues and obviously I have worked here for twenty-four years and know quite a bit about the school from that so clearly that’s why I’m here.
I think that the comments about the language are very fair and people have said the same thing to us when we did the five-year primary review because we have to follow national documentation and national procedures. If we used sort of a more informal process to begin with, a more informal language and then we changed to a very formal process part way through, people with some justification say well you did that to smoke and mirrors, ..ful language whatever.
The language is very cold. The only thing I can say to people is, that clearly if you look at the track record of when we did a very, very lengthy repetitive process of the primary review we brought forward proposals like this and we named the schools for closure and if you look at what we proposed over that period and if you look at the primary school landscape now, the two don’t match because sometimes our proposals were accepted after the consultation period, sometimes we were told to go away and start again and indeed there’s some schools I can think of one school where we proposed closure twice in two successive cycles and the school is still there and functioning normally so I hope, I know it’s difficult for people to believe us, I know the language is very cold but I think the proof is there that the process did work. There was consultation and the outcome was not predetermined. The outcomes were many and varied, at the end of the day we went from a hundred schools to ninety but it was a very different ten schools to the ones that were proposed unfortunately.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
We’ve got Alan and then Leah.
COUNCILLOR ALAN BRIGHOUSE
Thank you for that, thanks Chair. The sort of sustainability of err Lyndale School has been in question for some time as I think we’ve heard tonight. Am I right and I accept what the Chair says, I don’t want to stray into the next part of the call in but is it the change in the Education Funding Agency’s funding arrangements that has actually prompted us into now looking at the school and looking at its viability or would we have done it anyway?
DAVID ARMSTRONG
I think it’s a key issue within the debate. If you take a very brief view. Local management of schools began in 1990, when massively big Council budgets were broken up and delegated to schools quite rightly and power was given to schools to spend that money and clearly I was here when that started.
The primary and secondary debate puts the money through a formula into the schools and what’s happened over the years when we first started we had hundreds of funding factors so some of those, because we didn’t, had a factor that if you had trees on the site you got more money through the formula or if you had a bigger, we had one for a long time where if you had a bigger building you got more money.
What’s happened in primary and secondary mainstream is that the whole thing over the twenty odd years has been streamlined down and streamlined down and streamlined down. You now have a very few factors which are reliant upon deprivation, but primarily pupil numbers.
If you’ve got somebody sitting on the seat you get the money, if you haven’t got somebody sitting on the seat you don’t and there’s a check mechanism the minimum funding guarantee but that’s the hard reality. What’s happened for many years is the special schools sat alongside that, they have a defined budget, a fixed budget but you were allowed to carry on funding by place rather than pupil but what’s happened is as local … of schools has been achieved and it’s not a criticism of the system, it’s where it was always going to end up over a long journey over twenty-five years.
The national changes bring the special sector into line, not quite the same, but they bring them into line with the primary and secondary situation hence this talk of place plus. So for the first time, we cannot fund all of it on the place we have to fund a substantial part of it on the pupil and what I’m doing and Mike and others are is that through the work of the secondary and special heads which is a tight-knit family of eleven, through Pat’s work, through Andrew’s work that family as a group for some time now that they will fund not … they’ll fund forty places even though there are twenty-three children there.
Clearly they do that at the expense of money that would otherwise go through the formula, go through .. with the schools and what we’re nervous of is is that a sustainable long-term position?
We’re also nervous that we’ve been able to decide that locally. Andrew’s been able to take reports to the Schools Forum, Pat’s been able to meet with the other heads, Andrew’s met with the heads, met with the governors and it’s all been ok. From next year we will have to seek an approval from the Education Funding Agency to fund those places. That made Andrew and I deeply nervous because we’ve had some experience of the national Educational Funding Agency where it appeared that when we had a problem the rules mattered more than the children.
We were heartened to meet with the EFA with local officers this week who said that he thought they would be mindful it was the power of, they would agree to but what we see is a local arrangement that we think would be some sort of dereliction of our duties if we didn’t say we don’t think that this is sustainable long-term and we have a changing national picture which for all the right reasons as I’ve … to us is changing that landscape and taking away some of the freedoms we’ve got. So in that context, yes it is a key issue.
COUNCILLOR ALAN BRIGHOUSE
Could I just do a … just to pick up on that the I fully appreciate the direction of travel and where we’re going but ultimately I would like to think that we’re making this decision because we’ve looked at it and we’ve decided that this is because ultimately we are responsible for public funds, that this is the right thing to do. Almost regardless of what the funding arrangements are suggesting because when I read the report it looks as though it’s all driven by the funding arrangements and not by the err by the, I will get to, my question is this.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
You’re clearly straying into the next call in.
COUNCILLOR ALAN BRIGHOUSE
I know I am straying into the next call in, but I just it was because of I do think at the end it’s fundamental to the whole process. I just, what I really wanted, my question is this. Lyndale School is something special, we’ve heard that tonight. Would we as a Council put a price on that specialness?
(applause)
DAVID ARMSTRONG
I agree with you entirely that it’s very special. I came here in 1990 after being a primary school head and I remember going to the Clatterbridge site. I in fact did the bid in my youth to move them from Clatterbridge, the bid that brought in the grant to move the school from Clatterbridge to Lyndale.
I worked through the scheme that amalgamated ??? Juniors to release the site. So yeah it is a very special school but this is where we have a very difficult job to do. Do we just sit on our hands and say nothing and know an informal arrangement that has worked well for a few years, hasn’t got the resilience to carry on or do we come to you and do we say to the Director actually the landscape’s changing nationally, the numbers aren’t rising, we’re funding this place with empty places currently other schools are compliant with that but it’s a tight-knit family of heads that hasn’t had a lot of change. We have to put the issue on the table and say this is where it is. It’s nothing to do with the specialness of the school, the school is a very special place and we’ve all played a part in our little way, a very little way compared to what you’ve heard tonight in making it what it is.
(heckling)
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Can I bring Leah in?
(heckling)
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Sorry I’m bring Leah Fraser in ok, thank you.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thank you I’ve got two questions to Julia Hassall and two for David Armstrong. I don’t mind who answers them. Is that ok to ask all four? Right well I’ll ask them one by one.
I’m asking Julia this but as I say I don’t mind who answers it. I asked Andrew to send me some information via email as you know and that information was the complex learning need pupil numbers between 2004 and 2013 for five schools, Foxfield, Meadowside, Elleray Park, Lyndale and Stanley. Now, going through them in this order, I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, I’m just taking them one at a time.
Foxfield in 2004 had a hundred and twenty-seven and last year had a hundred and twenty-four. So they’ve stayed relatively the same. Meadowside seventy-eight, seventy-two, I’ll skip to Stanley eighty-eight ten years later eighty-nine. Elleray Park fifty in 2004, last year they had ninety-one so they’ve almost doubled by fifty percent. Lyndale was forty in 2004 and now it’s twenty-four so basically Lyndale’s halved and Elleray Park’s doubled.
Now also looking at these feel that this errm chart, each school takes children with PMLD so why when numbers are going down in Lyndale have children with PMLD been sent to say Elleray Park? Hasn’t somebody been keeping an eye on this, because it then from what Emma Howlett, was it Emma? Yeah I think it was Emma said that it’s the Council’s statement and it’s the Council that refer to where a child goes to school. So why have the Council allowed the numbers at Lyndale to halve over ten years? That’s my first question.
COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK.
JULIA HASSALL
OK, Councillor Fraser, I’ll start but colleagues may want to come into that. The reason why numbers are what they are or changed over a period of time is parental choice.
(heckling)
So I’ve really looked into the issue that parents have raised with me that there’s been a subtext of diverting parents from one school to another and I’ve asked colleagues, I’ve researched how the statementing process works and the response I’ve received and I’ve looked at our admissions booklets and there is a very clear process set out and over a period of time these are choices that parents have made as part of the overall statementing process.
At this point in time, there are as you know three primary schools for children with complex learning difficulties, Stanley, Elleray Park and Lyndale. About a year ago an HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspector) was commissioned by the local authority to look at where the children with profound and multiple learning difficulties were being educated and they looked at the children who are being, there are some children with PMLD that are educated at Elleray Park School and with the larger number of children at the Lyndale School and they formed a view that individual Eric Craven formed a view that both settings could appropriately care for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties.
Stanley School has focused more on children on the autistic spectrum and currently don’t have children with profound and multiple learning difficulty but the view was both Elleray Park at that point and Lyndale could care for children with profound and complex needs and it was parents making choices about where there, which school their child attended.
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thanks for that, just to follow up from that, Emma did say that she was only offered one school and there wasn’t a ??? . So you can’t chose something if you don’t know about it. If you’re not told about a school, you can’t actually choose it.
(applause)
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
My second question..
JULIA HASSALL
Errm, Councillor Fraser, just
COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Oh right sorry.
JULIA HASSALL
Sorry, just very briefly on that the three….
